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Essex photographer Martin Le-May captured this epic moment on Monday, in which a weasel is soaring on the back of a woodpecker. It was Tweeted out by birder/wildlife photographer Jason Ward where it quickly went viral and had many people wondering if it was real or photoshopped. It’s apparently very real.

As we walked we heard a distressed squawking and I saw that flash of green. So hurriedly I pointed out to Ann the bird and it settled into the grass behind a couple of small silver birch trees. Both of us trained our binoculars and it occurred that the woodpecker was unnaturally hopping about like it was treading on a hot surface. Lots of wing flapping showing that gloriously yellow/white colour interspersed with the flash of red head feathers. Just after I switched from my binoculars to my camera the bird flew across us and slightly in our direction; suddenly it was obvious it had a small mammal on its back and this was a struggle for life.

He added that the woodpecker managed to get away, while the weasel wandered off into the grass.

Real or not, you can’t put a picture like that online and expect to walk away meme-free.

Here are some of the best responses from Twitter of the #WeaselPecker:

Redditor AlphaF submitted this perfectly staged photograph that she had sent to her worrying mother during a trip to the Grand Canyon. For more photoshopped parodies and copycat attempts, check out the gallery over at Know Your Meme!

Prank Artist of the Day is a feature series showcasing some of the most brilliant pranks and exploits of our times.

Keep it classy at School of Fail!

Back in April, at the request of his 87-year-old grandfather, Redditor stevieboy1984 turned to the /r/PicRequests subreddit to see if anyone could clean up a scanned JPEG image file of his grandfather's World War II-era photo taken during his service in the Navy as a submarine sonar/radar operator. After a number of people offered their photoshop wizardries to help its restoration, stevieboy1984 showed his grandfather six variations before handing him a framed version of top commenter unhi's submission. Here's a video of the big reveal. Grab a box a tissues, manly tears are coming.

Strong storms have been producing some huge waves on the European coast. Simon Emmett was taking photographs of waves breaking at the Cobb when he snapped this curious image.